A family is a constant work in progress, with everyone scrambling to do what they can for themselves and each other. They are always hanging by a thread, yet this perilous nature is oddly stable. The family always has loved itself, and likely always will.
The values and ideals of the family seem to stand firm all throughout, the reliance on nicotine and the lack of emphasis on the importance of the academic and the logical forms of thought. They, instead, focus on the leisurely, the philosophical, the emotional. They are worldly beings, and focus on the worldly aspects of life.
They are empathetic, social, normal. The fourth child, though, was the opposite of what they stood for. The child is not social. They do not understand others' emotions. The child does not work in the world around them, instead preferring the space in their head, and the heads of others like them.
Everywhere they are good, the child fails. They are conceited where the family is humble. They are incompetent where the family is capable. They are ignorant to emotion where the family is empathetic.
Often the family and the child cross words. The family is at home, but the child...
The child feels on their own.
